Second Chances
by TheMightyZan
Summary: Fenris apologizes, and hopes to the Maker that it is enough.


**A drabble that got away from me. Enjoy!**

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><p>"We have not talked about what happened between us three years ago."<p>

The statement was out of him before he had even realized that he wanted to say it, and he wasn't surprised when the woman before him tensed and shifted her gaze to the fire. It was several moments before she said anything, and he was beginning to wonder if he should continue when she raised her shoulder in a jerky shrug.

"You didn't want to talk about it."

No, he hadn't. He hadn't wanted to hear what she might say to him, hadn't wanted to hear that she also thought it had been a bad idea. He especially didn't want to hear that he might have broken her heart as surely as he had his own.

"No… I… I was a coward. I thought it better that you hated me, but I didn't want to know that you did. I didn't want it put into words, even though I deserved nothing less." She was still staring at the fire, her face a careful mask and her hands folded tightly enough in her lap that he could see the bones of her knuckles pressing white against her skin.

"But it isn't better," he continued on, suddenly afraid that he had waited too long, had put her through too much. His words were a jumble as he continued. "I remember your touch as if it were yesterday. I know I can't change what happened, how I acted, but if I could I can say with absolute certainty that I would have stayed instead of fleeing. I would have told you how I felt."

She had shifted her eyes back to him, curiosity always getting the better of her, even when she didn't really want to know where it led.

He loved that about her. Of course, since he was trying to be honest, he should admit that he loved everything about her, even the things he had once claimed to hate.

"I need to know why you left."

The question was quiet, but it drew him from his thoughts. Thinking on the answer, he stood and moved restlessly in front of the fire, searching for words that had been well buried for far too long. "I've thought about that a thousand times. The pain… The memories it brought up… It was all too much." He stopped pacing and turned to face her, a hollow smile tilting his lips. "I already mentioned I was a coward."

Her own smile appeared at that, and it was just as strained as his. "Yes. So, what is it that you would have said?"

He could hear the warble in her voice, and felt like twice the fool for putting them both through this. There was nothing he could do to take it back, but he wanted, desperately, to find a way for them to move forward.

With that conviction he knelt at her feet and reached out to take her hands, ignoring the way they remained passive. "That there is nothing worse than the thought of living without you."

She let out a humorless laugh and glanced down at her lap. Her hands cautiously tightened on his own a moment before she loosened them again. "And what happens, Fenris, the next time you are overcome with memories, or feel overwhelmed? Am I to be left again?"

The questions tore at him, mangling his heart with their dagger like precision. It was right of her to ask, she had no other information to go by but what had already occurred and she needed to protect herself after being so open the last time, but oh, it hurt to know that he had done this to himself, to them both.

Finally, he shook his head before bowing it over their hands. When he spoke again, it was in earnest. "I'm not going to leave you again. No matter if you walk away from this or not. I have faced my past, and I have come away more whole but not complete. I cannot keep using them as a way to protect myself. That is not the life I want to lead. If there is any future to be had for me, it is at your side, however you will have me."

He was startled when a drop of water hit their joined hands, and he jerked back in time to see another fall to join it. "Do you think…" She turned her face away and removed one of her hands to wipe at it. "Do you think that you are the only one who is incomplete?"

He didn't know how to respond, didn't know how to make this better, and he desperately wanted to.

So he kissed her.

He was very sure he surprised them both with his actions, but once it was started he couldn't find a way to stop. Instead, he reached up to cup her chin with his hands and turned her towards him more fully. When she gripped his wrists he thought she might push him away, but she didn't. No, she simply held on to him, letting them both be drawn in further to the kiss.

When he realized she was still crying he moved his lips to her cheeks, whispering words of apology even as he kissed away the tears on her face. He finally pulled back when she began to laugh. It was a slightly hysterical sound, tumbling from her lips in stutters and starts, and he worried what it meant until she opened her eyes and looked at him.

Those eyes. The eyes that he had seen in his dreams every night since almost the first day he met her. They were wet, yes, but they were also clear, and steady, and crinkled with happiness at the edges.

He started laughing then also, because he had been foolish, and stubborn, and stupid, and scared, and there had never been any reason for him to be. He had made them both miserable, and he planned on spending the rest of his life making it up to her.

"Fenris."

He tilted his head, and, unable to help himself, kissed her again before replying. "Yes?"

"If you leave me again, I will kill you."

"That sounds reasonable." He smiled while saying it, an actual, real, happy about life smile, because he knew. He knew that he was never going to leave her again.

He was hers.


End file.
